Pakistan cleric arrested over dancing death decree

This file photo shows Pakistani shopkeepers standing outside closed market stalls in Miranshah, the main town in the troubled North Waziristan tribal district, in 2007. A US drone strike on a militant compound killed five insurgents in Miranshah early Thursday, according to officials

Police in Pakistan on Tuesday arrested a Muslim cleric accused of sentencing six people to death for singing and dancing at a wedding in the north of the country.

“Police have arrested a cleric and his companion for issuing the death decree, but they totally denied it,” local administration officialAqal Badshah Khattak told AFP.

“The cleric has said he had no role in the decree and his name was misused,” Khattak said.

Police told AFP on Monday that clerics sentenced four women and two men to death after mobile phone footage emerged of them enjoying themselves at a village wedding in the mountains of Kohistan district, 175 kilometres (110 miles) north of the capital Islamabad.

The men and women had allegedly danced and sung together in Gada village, in defiance of strict tribal customs that separate men and women at weddings.

But on Tuesday, district police chief Abdul Majeed Afridi said it appeared to be a case of tribal rivalry and an attempt to defame a family.

He said the video was recorded three years ago and then edited in an attempt to implicate the party goers.

“I am satisfied that there is no danger to the life of the girls,” he said.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, at least 943 women and girls were murdered last year after being accused of defaming their family’s honour.

The statistics highlight the scale of violence suffered by many women in conservative Muslim Pakistan, where they are frequently treated as second-class citizens.